Green Mountain Ghost-Busting!
Greg Guma’s “Spirits Of Desire”

Unless you are an avid follower of Joe Citro’s work, mention “Vermont” and any of the following in the same sentence - spiritualism, ghostly manifestations, astral projection, or reincarnation – and you’d be laughed out of the room. Surely, skeptics and stereotypers say, the Green Mountains are made up of nothing more than quaint cow-town communities, punctuated by Bennington, Rutland, Burlington and a few other small cities. The people are industrious, with their Birkenstocks, barnyards, and barristas, the hills are beautiful, the barnyard animals are plentiful…and not much of interest goes on there, aside from the occasional puppet-driven political outburst from the direction of Glover.

Not so, not so, reply those more familiar with Vermont’s colorful history. And, in case you still don’t believe, check out a brand-new novel from long-time journalist and activist Greg Guma. For more than two decades, Guma has been working on Spirits of Desire, creating what turns out to be one of the most fascinating fictional Vermont-based true-to-history yarns I’ve read in quite some time.

Spirits of Desire follows a group of extraordinary individuals – headstrong lawyer-turned-supernatural investigator Henry Olcott, angst-filled utopian rebel Theodore Noyes, the unscrupulous positivist Doctor George Miller Beard, and the extraordinarily strong-willed Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky — as their lives (yep, that’s plural - past and present) intersect in an 1874 Chittenden, Vermont community run by the Eddy family. Seems the Eddys are conducting mysterious “séances” on the grounds of their family compound, provoking belief in some who witness the mysterious goings-on, and outrage in others, like scientist Beard, who see the Eddys’ work as nothing more than a sham to be exposed, in order to build the post-Civil War reputation of disinterested science (as well as his own career). (Controversy over the Eddys’ activities, moreover, fed into a larger national epistemological debate about the nature and origins of truth and its relationship to the supernatural during the post-Civil War period).

A number of ingredients make Guma’s novel so good. The characters, for starters, are richly drawn. Watching Noyes struggle to understand his role as the inheritor of the Oneida colony’s utopian legacy makes for good reading, while the dramatic tension between Olcott and Beard helps frame the unfolding narrative. Blavatsky is one of the most intriguing female literary characters I’ve ever met – arrogant, proud, powerful, and yet vulnerable as well. Whenever she’s in the room, she rivets the attention of the reader. And, as Guma points out, in a very real sense, Blavatsky and Olcott represent early modern America’s original “ghost busters,” occult pioneers who challenged conventional explanations about paranormal activities. For any of us who thought such activities began in the 1980s with Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, and the “Stay Puff Marshmellow Man,” this may come as a shock.

“Spirits of Desire” also creates a compelling historical backdrop for the main story. Guma adeptly paints a picture of a post-Civil War America rife with political graft, imbued with widespread skepticism, and driven along by rapid technological, political and economic transformations – Credit Mobilier and the majestic corruption of the railroad industry, Tammany Hall and the back-scratching embedded in urban machine politics, the promise of national political reform, as embodied by almost-president Samuel Tilden - that helped fuel the spiritualist craze. His novel, while clocking in at under 300 pages, captures a wide slice of the restless 1870s: small town life in Vermont, the hardships of train travel, social conditions in New York City, and the unique nature of the utopian Oneida community of upstate New York.

Just as fascinating, perhaps, is the story’s conclusion (totally unexpected) and Guma’s afterword, in which he explains how he came to research and write the book, as well as what aspects of the story are based directly on the historical record, and which came to be imagined out of his own head. “Spirits of Desire” is an impressive debut novel, one that raises more questions than it answers, one that will stay with you long after you finish the tongue-in-cheek last sentence.

Early 21st century America looks more like the post-Civil War United States than we might care to admit, but Guma’s novel, in it’s own way, may offer us some wisdom as we struggle to understand our place in the cosmos.

First printed in the Vermont Guardian.

Until recently, I had nothing but warm and fuzzy feelings associated with little Chelsea Green Press. Based in White River Junction, CGP was pigeonholed — at least in my mind — as the book publisher I could count on to collect and serve up, say, thoughtful words about forestry practices in New England, or the history of Frost-ian stone walls, or wisdom about how to live more sustainably by “buying green.”

Reading through some of Chelsea Green’s new book titles seemed to bear out my initial impressions. Interested in a designing a personal sauna experience? Check out author Rob Roy’s The Sauna: A Complete Guide to the Construction, Use, and Benefits of the Finnish Bath, complete with charts, diagrams, and photos of towel-clad and steamy-smiled New Englanders enjoying all the wonders of traditional Nordic technology.

“Wondering what YOU can do to protect the earth and make the world a better place.” I rhetorically ask, quoting from the book jacket of Lisa Harrow’s What Can I Do? An Alphabet for Living, another Chelsea Green title. Harrow’s little guide provides the answer, in the form of an alphabetized list of URL-driven, conservation-minded green resources and organizations. She also recounts “the inspiring stories of ordinary people who started these organizations and who are making a difference every day — just like you can!”

It’s not that these new offerings aren’t interesting or important —they are. It’s just that sometimes a book about Finnish baths (and, believe me, I’m now scouring my little Mad River homestead for the ideal sauna site) seems so, well, disconnected from the larger political debates swirling around us.

However, I now must confess to being wrong about Chelsea Green. In reviewing cognitive linguist and leftist intellectual darling de jour George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant! (CGP’s biggest bestseller) a few months back, I’ve noticed that something important is going on down in White River Junction. Perhaps it’s the electronic “US spending for the Iraq War” ticker at their website that tipped me off, or the “Tell your Senators to vote no on Gonzales” e-campaign on the website sidebar. What IS clear is that, in the midst of highly charged political times (you know the current Big Media-created mythology about “Red” and “Blue” states and never the twain shall meet), Chelsea Green is staking out literary ground where other, much larger publishing houses dare not go.

Concerned about “peak oil” and the coming collapse of the global fossil fuel economy? This, after all, is what the 9/11 “terrorist” attacks were really about. Check out Greg Pahl’s Biodiesel: Growing a New Energy Economy, which chronicles global efforts to shift away from unsustainable fossil fuels and towards more renewable vegetable oils. Pahl’s work places the emerging biodiesel industry in both a historical and political context, spotlights the key players working to make biodiesel a more viable energy option, and realistically balances the opportunities biodiesel presents, without minimizing the internal debates and external challenges facing this new industry.

Even more overtly political are two other Chelsea Green titles that help comprise a new “Politics of the Living” series, defined by CGP as a “collection of hard-hitting works by major writers exposing the global governmental and corporate assault on life.” Human rights lawyer Michael Ratner and political journalist Ellen Ray’s Guantanamo: What the World Should Know explores the legal and moral questions surrounding the Bush administration’s decision to round up and imprison, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, thousands of Muslims and Arabs from more than 40 different countries. More than 800 of the detained have been deemed “enemy combatants,” in Bush administration legalese, and placed in the Guantanamo “detention camp” beyond the reach of U.S. law and the Constitution, without any specific charges leveled against them and without hope of a trial.

Lest we think we need not be concerned about the rights of those sporting US government issued orange-jump suits, Chelsea Green has also published Derrick Jensen and George Draffan’s Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control, exploring how Jeremy Bentham’s famous Panopticon is becoming more and more a reality in 21st-century U.S. society. “Today, science is the religion,” our authors write, “experts are the priests, bureaucrats are the gatekeepers, and research and development institutions are the cathedrals.” The “Machine” they’ve collectively wrought I leave for you to discover in this disturbing book.

In the end, any book publisher is defined by the collections of words contained in their storehouse. Vermont’s Chelsea Green is re-defining itself as “the mouse that roared,” the little Green Mountain press with the courage to issue a provocative literary challenge to the status quo. We might do well to support them in any way that we can.

First published in the “Vermont Guardian.”

Digesting Big Food:
Time To Get “Fed Up”!

You know the old saying – “you are what you eat”? For folks interested in establishing a more conscious intimate relationship with the food they put into their bodies every day, the state of Vermont is a consumer’s paradise. We are a state of small businesses and, of course, small farms. Last spring, my family decided to invest in a community-supported-agriculture (CSA) program to support (and be supported by) our Vermont farm family neighbors. Now, six months later, looking at our family’s pantry, modified garage cooler/root cellar, and freezer full of fresh local and organic (in many instances) fruits, vegetables, and meats, I can honestly say it was one of the best decisions we’ve made since coming to the Green Mountain State.

Many Americans don’t give much thought to the food they consume daily. We are busy and over-extended – trying to work (to put food on the table, remember), pay our bills, raise our families, and find some time in our days for rest and recreation. We are overwhelmed with too much information. And, we are conditioned to accept certain ways of thinking about our relationship to food, a value system shaped by family, tradition, habit, and a corporately-owned media culture supported by the advertising, marketing, and public relations power of giant multinational food-producing corporations (Think McDonald’s sponsoring of “Sesame Street,” or Archer Daniels Midland’s underwriting of National Public Radio.)

Inject into this mix a wonderful new independent movie called “Fed Up,” a humorous and sobering look at current food production and distribution dilemmas at both the local and global level. Like a fine stew, “Fed Up” mixes documentary-style footage, first person interviews, and historical media montage (often hilariously de-contextualized moments from bygone “better living through chemistry” films of the Cold War period) to raise important questions AND offer solutions to the current crises surrounding global food issues.

“Fed Up” takes the viewer on a journey from the Green Revolution through the Biotech Revolution, and interviews a wide variety of food-focused visionaries: Marc Lappé and Britt Bailey from the Center for Ethics and Toxics; Peter Rosset and Anuradha Mittal from Food First; Vandana Shiva from the Research Center for Science, Technology and Ecology; Ignacio Chapela from UC Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management; and Martina McGloughlin, Director of UC Davis’ Biotechnology Program.

The bottom line: our decisions about food, at both the individual and organizational level, are deeply political ones, and there is many actions all of us can take to ensure a more sustainable and equitable food supply as we look to the many 21st century challenges ahead. If you are looking for an affordable and thought-provoking multimedia resource to further explore food-related issues in your home, classroom, or community, put down your fork and pick up a copy of “Fed Up.” It is a fine film!

First published in the “Rural Vermont” newsletter.

A Muse You Can Use: The 2nd Annual MountainTop Film Festival

January 7-16, 2005
Waitsfield; Route 100’s Eclipse Theater
www.mountaintopfilmfestival.com

In the midst of our hyper-mediated 21st century society, it can be hard finding news you can trust, let alone use. Reading seems like so much work – all those words, so few pictures, and who has the time? Meanwhile, multinational media conglomerates – Time/Warner, Fox, Disney, Clear Channel, and Viacom - own most of our television and radio news outlets, hosting well-coiffed and highly paid news anchors who gently deliver the day’s “newspeak” - de-contextualized sound bites of often-unrelated information – from behind their carefully constructed “news” stages, or shout down co-anchors or guests (mostly white, male, and well-off) who hold viewpoints with which they disagree.

Given these disturbing circumstances, the independent film festival venue takes on growing significance as we enter another new year. For citizens interested in uncovering larger complexities and deeper truths behind the simplistic “news” façade thrown up by Big Media, look no further than the list of films presented at this year’s MountainTop Film Festival. The 10 day event, hosted to coincide with our nation’s annual Martin Luther King Day celebration, features more than 25 films focusing on a wide variety of topics of critical importance to us all. “In a time when information is so controlled and often censored by economic and political interests, images are ammunition,” explains film festival director Claudia Becker. “We have chosen films that ask some of the most vital questions of our time about areas of concern around the world.”

This year’s festival serves up some of the most provocative films of the past year, with special guests galore, including Vermonters Deb Ellis and Bernie Sanders, English actor-turned peace activist Jeremy Gilley (hosting the U.S. premiere of his film “Peace One Day,”) and Mario Van Peebles, who screens “BaadAsssss,” a tribute to his pioneering black filmmaker father Melvin Van Peebles, on opening night. In addition to “big buzz” indie movies like “The Corporation,” “Maria Full Of Grace,” and “You Can’t Be Neutral On A Moving Train” (on the “documentary” short list for the 2005 Oscars), here’s a short “highlights” list of the films Becker and festival manager Kimberly Ead have assembled.

In the “déjà vu” history category, I suggest screening Peter Davis’ remarkable Oscar-winning 1974 documentary “Hearts and Minds,” about the U.S. occupation of Vietnam. Some critics of current U.S. foreign policy have suggested that simply substituting the word “Iraq” for “Vietnam,” and the word “terrorism” for “communism,’ explains why the U.S. “neocon” policymakers might do well to heed to Vermont politician George Aiken’s advice to “declare victory, and get out.” Such comparisons are never this simplistic. But watching Davis’ film two decades later, one can’t help but take notice of the language used by U.S. officials to justify Indochina’s invasion and occupation (Walt Rostow and Donald Rumsfeld seem like the same guy), or the stories young Americans on all sides of the conflict have to tell. Davis pulls no punches, and stretches his analogies a bit thin, at times, but the film is more relevant than ever.

Combine Davis’ film with the remarkable “About Bagdad,” which paints as complex a picture of modern Mesopotamia, post-Saddam, as you’ll ever find on film, and “Soldier’s Pay,” which tackles the Iraq war’s impact on U.S. military families, and you can’t help but have your thinking altered. If this isn’t enough, though, be sure to take in the famous 1965 classic “The Battle of Algiers.” Directed by Italian filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo, this “mockumentary” fictionally re-creates the events leading up to the 1962 Algerian revolution as insurgent “terrorists” struggle against Western colonialism. When U.S. officials recently asked former counter-terrorism expert and Against All Enemies author Richard Clarke (The only U.S. official, remember, to publicly apologize to the families of 911 victims) how best to fight a “war on terror,” Clarke’s response was to see this film as an example of what NOT to do. Enough said.

And here are just two other films that have made an impression on me. Working with abused and troubled teens being tried as adult criminals in our increasingly draconian justice system, film director Leslie Neal serves up the moving 60 minute documentary “Juvies,” narrated by actor Mark Walberg, and featuring the voices of twelve different juvenile offenders trying to make sense of their lives. And, if you’ve already seen “The Corporation,” consider taking in “Thirst,” which chronicles the work of citizen/activists in California, India and Bolivia as they struggle to retain control over local water rights and hold thirsty multinational corporations at bay.

The MountainTop Film Festival’s ten days of films work as a sort of muse, providing news you can use to make sense of some of the great dilemmas of our time. You can access a complete film festival calendar, information about each film, directions to the Eclipse Theater, and other pertinent information at www.mountaintopfilmfestival.com.

Green Mountain Music:
Building A Global Neighborhood

I’m having one of those moments again, when the stars are aligning to bring some tremendous musical opportunities to central Vermont. During the next several weeks, a wide variety of artists will be flowing in and out of the Green Mountain state. Here are three very different acts from around the country and the world that you may not want to miss.

Start with “Brotherhood of Groove,” a high energy horns-driven combo out of New Orleans that’s been blowing the doors off of venues coast to coast with their fabulous fusion sound – a mix of rock, brass band, reggae, electic jazz, and old school funk. To say that “I felt the groove” when I first dropped this CD into my car’s stereo for the first time several weeks ago would be a classic understatement. Fronted by guitarist/singer/ songwriter Brandon Tarricone (voted among of the top 10 guitarists in a 2001 Jambase reader’s poll), BOG throws down some of the most danceable stuff to hit the Green Mountains in quite some time. Their newest CD, BOG Style (a title which pays clever homage to their bayou roots) boasts a remarkable horn section, including Henley Douglas Jr. (Boston Horns), Sam Kininger (Soulive), and Jeff Watkins (James Brown band); Stewart McKinsey’s throbbing 8 and 0 string bass work (feel it to believe it); Jon Massing’s New Orleans style rhythmic drumming; and special guest appearances by Ivan Neville (one of the Neville brothers) and Marco Benevento (the Duo). You can catch BOG’s unique mojo on three different occasions during the next two weeks. They’ll play Waitsfield’s Eclipse Theater on Saturday, January 29, Stowe’s Rusty Nail on Thursday, February 3, and Burlington’s Nectar’s on Friday, February 4. If you like to dance, don’t miss this band.

While Louisiana’s BOG impresses with their in-your-face soul sound, I’ve got good news for you if less funky but equally jaw-dropping acoustic music is more your thing. The California Guitar Trio is returning to Vermont for a Saturday, February 5 show at Waitsfield’s Eclipse Theater, having just produced a new CD called “Whitewater” (with the help of the legendary Tony Levin), a collection that continues to set a high artistic bar for anyone familiar with their unique sound. CGT is a unique global acoustic amalgamation made up of Utah’s Paul Richards, Belgium’s Bert Lams, and Japan’s Hideyo Moriya. Each of them is an accomplished acoustic guitarist, but together, their musicianship is not to be believed, a fantastic example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Of CGT, Vintage Guitar magazine senior writer Willie Moseley simply had this to say:
“Here’s a modern, highly-listenable progressive rock effort with a disproportionate amount of acoustic instrumentation that’s anchored by solid and dedicated musicianship, and there ain’t a hint of the pretentiousness that is almost invariably found within the genre.” But words do CGT little justice – they must be heard to be believed.

And finally, from neighboring Boston, comes DL (a.k.a. Daniel Laurent) a new rap presence who will be mixing it up on Saturday, February 19th at Waitsfield’s Eclipse Theater/Starlight Lounge. Spinning his 4 song sampler, I was immediately grabbed by the first cut, a tune called “MASSterpiece,” which takes the cheesy title song from the popular television comedy “Cheers” (You know, “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name/ and they’re always glad you came…?) and mixes it into a much more candid account of growing up in Boston, beyond the range of Ted Danson’s winning charm and Kirstie Alley’s smile. DL’s life has been one of travel, adventure, and personal tragedy (he lost his mother and father to prison and drugs by 15 years of age, spent much of his youth supporting his family, and his girlfriend of five years was murdered during her first week at an Atlanta college), but DL manages to tell stories that are at once honest, moving, and, as in the case of the “Cheers Song” (as it is popularly called), tongue-in-cheek humorous, as well.

When folks find out I live in central Vermont, they sometimes say to me: “What do you DO up there, anyway?” The answer I’d provide during these next two weeks would be: I have the opportunity to meet friends and neighbors to go out and listen to good music from around the world, all taking place within 30 minutes of my home. We are truly fortunate to have such fine musical opportunities in such a rural state – I encourage you to take advantage of them!

Lift Me To Paradise: The New Manny Milkuhn Collection

Every week, I am reminded of the richness of musical talent that surrounds us here in the greater Mad River Valley. And, in keeping with my New Year’s resolution (of LAST year) to devote more column space to spotlighting central Vermont musicians, I am happy here to review a brand-new CD (in your best TV commercial announcer’s voice, now) “NOT available in any store!” (at least not yet) but one: Waitsfield’s own “Tempest” book shop.

Some of you may know Manny Milkuhn. He’s that tall, affable, middle-aged gentleman who volunteers his time at the Waitsfield public library each week to tutor, check in books, and keep things running smoothly. He also happens to be a talented singer/songwriter and guitarist who quietly keeps a wide repertoire of classic Americana tunes under his hat. I first heard him belt out a couple of classics at the Purple Moon Pub one winter evening more than a year ago, when I took a break between sets and invited him up to play. He ended up throwing down several tunes, including the Woods Tea Company favorite about the Irishman, his kilt, and the ribbon (die-hard WTC fans know which tune I am talking about). He had so much fun singing that all of us in the crowd ordered another round and urged him to continue!

Good news - Manny now has a new CD of twelve classic cover tunes, and, for those who prefer their acoustic music pure and unadulterated, this is the collection for you! Start with the CD’s packaging, a simple straightforward artistic affair that carries one back to the aesthetic sensibilities of the 1960s and 1970s. There’s Manny with a big grin on his face, guitar nestled in the crook of his right shoulder, with the song list laid out above his photo in traditional typestyle, and the tag – “folk music played and sung by Manny Milkuhn.” Holding the package in my hand, I was immediately reminded of the old 78 LP vinyl records I used to own – and, I admit to feeling more than a passing moment of nostalgia.

Happily, in this case, what you read is what you get. Nothing but Manny, his guitar, and his rich and expansive voice, filling up your snug kitchen or cold car with compelling original interpretations of songs we all know. After kicking off with “Pack Up Your Sorrows,” Manny moves into “Blow Ye Winds In The Morning” (made famous, for me anyway, by Pete Seeger’s ‘Sam The Whaler’ story, which rolls this classic tune into a larger story about a young boy off to sea for a coming-of-age adventure.) After spending time with Belafonte’s “Jamaica Farewell” and “No Man’s Land,” Manny provides a beautiful rendition of “How Can I Keep From Singing?” Indeed.

On “Side Two” (I love a CD that has two sides – very clever, and in keeping with the “feel” of the project), Manny starts off with a Tom Paxton favorite “Where I’m Bound,” and then moves into the classic “Will The Circle Be Unbroken, followed by one of the most original interpretations of a much-covered song “House Of The Rising Sun,” which lifts the well-worn tune out of the doldrums and re-packages it in a airier manner. After capturing “Puff The Magic Dragon” on cut 11, Manny ends with the beautiful “For Lovin’ Me.”

The title of this collection is well-chosen. Manny’s warm voice, when combined with his understated guitar work, weaves a potent spell over the listener, and it is equally as clear that Mr. Milkuhn derives much pleasure from the simplicity of a song well sung. It is good to have his music in our midst.

CONGRATULATIONS! To Waitsfield filmmaker Eugene Jarecki and his wife, Claudia Becker, who organized this past month’s MountainTop Film Festival! Eugene’s new film WHY WE FIGHT, which takes an in-depth look at the past fifty years of U.S. militarism, took top honors in the documentary category at this past week’s Sundance Film Festival. Bravo!

Route 100’s Common Ground:
A Unique Filmic Collaboration

Something remarkable unfolded in the Mad River Valley this past fall, a unique collaboration among a variety of stake-holders interested in exploring the history of Route 100, Vermont’s oldest north-south highway. Students, teachers, film-makers, older (and wiser) Mad River Valley residents, and local businesses all collaborated to produce a thirty minute film entitled “Common Ground: The Stories of Waterbury to Warren.”

Begin with Vince Franke, a Duxbury Land Trust Board member and professional videographer, who envisioned a short film that captured the unique history of Route 100, from its intersection with modern interstate I-89, traveling over the Duxbury Hills and then southward, paralleling the snake-like course of the Mad River, as the two-lane runs to the southern end of Warren Village, just above Granville Gulch. To my eye, it is one of the most picturesque 25 minute drives in Vermont, and the history (both human and natural) there is certainly worth telling.

Add Harwood Union High School social studies teacher Jean Berthiaume’s “Vermont History” class, who took on a collaborative working relationship with Franke as the film project unfolded. Students in Berthiaume’s class immersed themselves in the histories of their own communities, visiting Barre’s Vermont Historical Society archives to unearth letters and other primary documents, and spending time interviewing a wide array of older Vermonters who had plenty of stories to tell about life in the Valley during the past several decades.

The resulting film is a little gem of a movie, a quick historical tour of what life was like in the greater Mad River Valley, as told through the voices of two narrators (I’ll let you be surprised and not reveal their identities here), as well as a number of veteran Vermonters who recount the changes they’ve witnessed. The short film covers much ground: the changing nature of various industries – including logging and farming – over the years; the impact of various wars on local economies; the evolution of formal public education in this little section of the state (no snow days once upon a time – if you needed to get to school in a snow storm, you just hopped on your sled to the one room school house nearby); the impact of the ski industry and other forms of tourism on the Valley; and the technological projects that brought modern electrical power and telecommunications to central Vermont, as late for some areas as the 1950s.

What makes the film special, other than the example it sets for any community seeking to tell its own stories through a collaborative educational process, is the balance of first person interviews (again, I’ll not reveal any names here – you must see the film yourself to witness your neighbors bearing testimony), on-screen narration, and archival footage (always interesting to see). Franke and the Harwood students made thoughtful editorial choices – the result is a project of which all involved should feel proud.

And our communities have supported the project, as well. More than 150 neighbors came out to see the film’s “world premiere” one month ago at Harwood High School where they were treated to spaghetti and a silent auction. And local commercial and educational benefactors - Arnot Development Group, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Harwood High School’s Music and History Departments, the Duxbury Country Store, the Stowe Street Emporium, and Vincent’s Drug and Variety – all provided financial support for the project, which is available for sale on both VHS and DVD from a variety of local merchants. Any money generated from sales will be poured back into the Duxbury Land Trust.

May we all pause for a moment and give thought to the wonderful trailblazing done by all those involved in this project. What other stories could we tell, on video, about the history, people and landscapes in our communities? Perhaps this film is but the first in a long line of central Vermont “digital stories” to come.

First printed in the Valley Reporter.

Labor Of Love: Composer Wayne Horvitz Orchestrates “Joe Hill” For Flynn Audiences

Years ago, I read a novel called Joe Hill, written by great American novelist (and part time Vermonter) Wallace Stegner. The fictional story Stegner weaves together is a nuanced account of legendary American labor leader Joseph Hillstrom, a Swedish immigrant who championed “Wobbly” ideals (Hill helped lead the International Workers of the World) and saw death by a Utah state firing squad in November 1915 after being tried as a convicted murderer. Was he an innocent man martyred by a repressive state for espousing the utopian possibilities of “one big union,” as Hill’s defenders claim? Or was he a self-promoting bully who ultimately deserved what he got?

Acclaimed composer Wayne Horvitz is not interested in reviving that still-fierce debate. Instead, he has composed “Joe Hill: 16 Actions for Chamber Orchestra and Voice,” an ambitious musical tribute to Joe Hill (who was also, let’s not forget, a songwriter) and his times. Horvitz’s remarkable score includes an amalgam of folk tunes, hymns, blues, jazz and orchestral chamber music, and features a star-studded cast of musical characters: conductor Michael Hopkins and members of the University of Vermont orchestra, vocalist Robin Holcomb, bluegrass icon Danny Barnes, librettist Paul Magid (of Flying Karamazov Brothers fame) and Grammy-winning jazz great Bill Frisell, whose stunning guitar work will help anchor Horvitz’s “beautiful elegy” when it comes to the Flynn Stage on Saturday, March 5.

The Vermont Guardian caught up with Wayne Horvitz at his Seattle home for an interview.

1. What explains your interest in “Joe Hill”?

The project crosses so many interests of mine. My initial interest pre-dated my exploration of Joe Hill’s life. I was having lunch with [guitarist] Bill Frisell. We had both been listening to American composers, and I decided I wanted to write a piece with non-classical vocal approaches in the context of an orchestral arrangement. And, to complicate matters, I didn’t want to use operatic voices – the idea of classically trained voices singing old hymns seemed a bit odd. So I contacted Paul Magid and he agreed to help me craft the text and the music. In seeking the “hook” for this project, meanwhile, Stegner’s novel, which had been lying around my house, presented itself as a complicated fictional portrait of a controversial figure from the time period I was interested in exploring. Finally, my family has been involved with various kinds of union activity over the years – my
Grandfather was the first president of the American Association of Arbitrators, and my father had been a labor mediator all his life. Out of these different threads emerged the focus on Joe Hill and his times.

2. How did you approach composing such an ambitious work?

This was a huge leap for me. Putting other people’s words to music was totally new, I had never done this before, but I had three different sources of inspiration. First, I wrote a lot of sketches around a set of traditional and popular American songs that I’ve listened to for a long time. Then, of course, were all the songs written by Joe Hill himself. And then, third, we created a large amount of text, Paul Magid and me, which had to be set to music. The most repeated line in the performance, by the way, is “a worker is worthy of his food.” And it was actually Jesus Christ who said that, not labor organizers. But anyway, I just went “bird by bird,” as writer Annie LaMott says, and constructed the whole performance one song and one sketch at a time.

3. Corporate power is at an all-time high in the United States, while union activity has decreased significantly during the past few decades. Is there a political message embedded in this performance?

The best way for me to answer that is to say I was drawn to the story of Joe Hill, or more accurately the legend, not because of the party line, the dogma, or an interest in inspiring the movement or converting the undecided. Rather, I was drawn to him as an American myth, an immigrant’s tale, a loner, a martyr, maybe a criminal, a victim of the media and the system, and a manipulator of it as well. But this piece has caused in me a transformation of sorts. I may not have changed my feelings about music and politics much, but it surely has about the politics’ part. Like Hill, I think that the music of Bob Dylan or Utah Phillips or Ani DiFranco can, at its best, speak to the honesty of the human condition, and the struggles working people deal with on a daily basis, without taking the mystery out of the music.

4. What do you hope audiences will take away from the performance?

I hope audiences feel that the music was moving to them, whether they are moved by the myth of Joe Hill or not. I’m not wanting people to necessarily be moved to action, but I am interested in their emotional connections to the performance, and, while the nature of the story may inspire at the political level, I hope people are touched, first and foremost, by the musical performance.

At “Joe Hill’s” world premiere last November, the Seattle Times called Horvitz’s work “great romantic music…a ravishingly beautiful work, particularly in its orchestral sections, which share a lot with the vernacular symphonizing of Mark O’Connor and Wynton Marsalis.” Vermont is indeed fortunate to have Horwitz with us on Saturday, March 5th – see you at the Flynn!

Tickets for “Joe Hill” are $31 and $26, and can be purchased in person at the Flynn Tix Regional Box Office Window at Burlington’s 153 Main Street; by calling 802.86.FLYNN; or online at www.flynncenter.org